5) Mike Tyson’s abandoned mansion.
6) Stephen Colbert testifies before a Congressional sub-committee in character.
7) Man attacks the Sesame Street character Elmo. Elmo wins fight.
weirdness
Randomness for 9/25
Standard1) For those who haven’t heard yet, the new OK GO! video. My son saw the goat the first time through, but I missed it. He had to point it out to me. And I seem to have missed this video from several months ago.
2) Health care reform explained, with timeline for policy implementation, subsidy calculators, etc.
3) It used to be that I’d have to send a link like this directly to my friend Jim, but now that he’s on Facebook, I can put it in my blog and hope he’ll see it in the RSS feed on my wall: A home-made coil gun blasts household objects. Video.
4) The paperback original: breakout opportunity or stigmatized format? I’m going with the former, since that’s how the Twenty Palaces books have come out.
5) Computer software judges attractiveness… of famous movie monsters. Well, famous except for “Bub” who I’ve never heard of.
6) The 14 best title cards for Batman: The Animated Series. This makes me want to buy the whole season on DVD.
7) Home circumcision kit. No. People, seriously, just… no.
Randomness for 8/28
Standard1) Note to shoplifters: Don’t try to rob a store while they’re in the middle of a police charity event.
2) Deep Fried Beer. Linking is not approval.
3) By the time this post goes online, I expect this policy to be rescinded: School segregates class elections by race.
5) A treehouse for people who love fantasy and need cardio. Lots and lots of cardio.
6) In case you don’t have enough reason to be sick of TWILIGHT, here’s the toilet decal.
7) Alternative Universe movie posters. Brad Pitt as Plastic Man? Tim Curry as the Joker? Love it. via tor.com
Randomness for 8/18
Standard1) Everything is better in France. Even muggings.
2) Trends in fantasy cover art for 2009.
3) Your monster instructional video for the day.
4) James Bond, Indian comic book style: “You hide identity for good. But there are Super Dupers who never reveal themselves at the worst.”
5) Seven scientific reasons the zombie apocalypse will not be an extinction event.
6) Rope gymnastics in India. Video. Honestly amazing.
Randomness for 8/16
Standard1) Wikipedia’s lamest edit wars.
3) A Star Wars Kid for the new age: HALO KID! Video.
4) Our Daughter Isn’t a Selfish Brat; Your Son Just Hasn’t Read
Atlas Shrugged. “When little Aiden toddled up our daughter Johanna and asked to play with her Elmo ball, he was, admittedly, very sweet and polite. I think his exact words were, “Have a ball, peas [sic]?” And I’m sure you were very proud of him for using his manners. To be sure, I was equally proud when Johanna yelled, “No! Looter!” right in his looter face, and then only marginally less proud when she sort of shoved him.”
5) How to recognize a card skimmer at your ATM. via Mary Catelli
6) How good do you have to be to win the World Yo-Yo Championships? Watch and find out. Video.
Randomness for 8/10
Standard1) Smart phone defeats hedge row maze.
2) Star Wars and Blaxploitation–how perfectly they fit together. The spoof trailer for Blackstar Warrior. Video.
3) How to quit your job. I don’t care if it’s fake. It’s awesome.
4) How to propose to your gamer girlfriend.
5) YA Dealbreakers. I don’t mind bad covers too much if the book comes highly recommended, but I don’t much care about vampires and I absolutely don’t read supernatural stories about rock stars of any kind (this isn’t as big a deal as it used to be).
6) Real life Yakuza review a Yakuza console game. Pretty damn interesting.
Mutual Combat
StandardFirst, the meathead ordinance has passed. Essentially, this means that officers could ticket people who are shouting, fighting, whatever as they leave a closing bar. This is good news for us, since we live in a very quiet neighborhood that has one bar nearby. People spill out of the bar singing and squabbling way too often. The city could balance their budgets on the backs of these fools.
What really caught my eye about this was this sentence in the article: “Fighting, or ‘mutual combat’ — where two parties punch and kick each other but don’t harm anyone else or cause property damage — isn’t currently against the law.”
To which I say “REALLY?” I have a hard time accepting that. The police wouldn’t arrest two dudes slugging it out in an alley as long as they didn’t break anything else, accidentally punch a bystander, or scream too loud?
Seattle: still hanging on to its frontier heritage.
I try not to duplicate content on my blog and twitter feed
StandardBut I’m making an exception for this:
Tucker Carlson’s conservative news site, The Daily Caller, has been trying to make hay with the Journolist story (refresher for folks who don’t know the story: For a few years there was a private email list for left and center left professors, journalists, policy people, etc to discuss ideas in an informal, off-the-record manner. Recently, many of those emails have been made public, and conservatives have been Breitbarting quotes from them and trying to play it off as a conspiracy of the liberal media. At the forefront of the conspiracy-mongering have been Sarah Palin and The Daily Caller).
It’s driving traffic to TDC, so I guess they’re doing well with it. However, there’s nothing in the world worth the self-humiliation of posting this hilariously stupid editorial about the attractiveness of the Journolist members.
Nevermind the usual juvenile obsession with liberals as filled with resentment and rage. The amount of time the editorialist spends talking about high school cliques is enough to get him laughed off staff of any decent news site. I don’t expect it from The Daily Caller, though.
Here’s a quick tip: Andrew Sullivan doesn’t live in San Francisco. Yes, he’s a gay man, and yes, he’s gotten older over the years, just like all of us. I’m sorry you don’t think he’s sexy any more–I suggest checking out Rentboy.com. I understand you can find some sexy young men on that site. Thanks, though, for mentioning the San Francisco waterfront, though. I wonder where that reference comes from.
Here’s another: being left or center left does not make a person an atheist. Thought you should know.
Last tip, because I don’t know how many more you can absorb: You’re a grown man. For fuck’s sake, get over the high school thing already.
God, it’s a whole new level of “pathetic.”
Randomness for 7/28
Standard1) Mom creates tableaus to illustrate what she imagines her sleeping baby is dreaming.
2) Via Sherwood Smith: Jane Austen’s Fight Club. (added later: Yeah, this has been going around for the past couple of days, but I’m not going to yank it just in case someone here still hasn’t had a chance to check it out.)
3) Introverts unite! (quietly).
4) Poppy Z. Brite, Tim Wildmon, and The Home Depot. I’m so tempted to send (anonymously) a copy of CoF to the AFA so they can boycott me, too. I could use the publicity.
5) Random House and Andrew Wylie clash over ebook publication.
7) And we mourn the end of an era: No more blowing up Michael Jackson zombies with your cornapult.
Randomness for 7/24
Standard1) Can you spot the endangered species in this photo?
2) Want your kid to do well in college? Take them out of school! via Jen Busiek.
3) A book marketing idea I’m going to steal. For Child of Fire, I’m thinking flame-proof kiddie pajamas. For Game of Cages, I’m not sure. Doggie sweaters?
4) Slate discovers BBB is worthless. The rest of America says “DUH!”
5) Last time I linked to a funny post by Josh Freidman. This time I’m linking to a post that is just as true and wrenched tears out of me. Incredibly powerful writing. Jesus.
6) And, to move from the sublime to the ridiculous: How to pay for a Death Star.
7) Science fiction writer profiled in NY Times. I hope it gets him new readers.